


And The Force Shall Set Us Free

by Shadaras



Series: More Than Our Makers Intended [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9302516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: Kylo Ren is imprisoned by the Resistance, and given one week to repent — or he shall die by General Leia Organa's hand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from the Sith Code, using the phrasing that I usually think it has.
> 
> Peace is a lie, there is only passion.  
> Through passion, I gain strength.  
> Through strength, I gain power.  
> Through power, I gain victory.  
> Through victory, my chains are broken.  
> The Force shall free me.  
> \- Sith Code

**Emotion, yet peace.**

The man who had once been her son didn’t look at her.

Leia closed her eyes and willed her throat to loosen. She had chosen this, she reminded herself. She could have let Luke or Rey tell him this. She could have even asked a Resistance member who had never known him. But she wanted to do this properly, and that meant talking to him herself, no matter how much it hurt.

He was dark-haired, pale-skinned (and he had not been so pale, the last time she’d seen him; he had been freckled and tanned, just a little, by the sunlight he ran around in, eschewing the formal robes as all the students of Luke’s academy did), and she had seen but a glimpse of the scar running down his face (thin and flush against his skin, invisible save for the shine and how it seemed paler yet than the rest of him) before he turned away from her without a word.

Neither of them had yet spoken.

The air hummed around her, crackling like the lightning she’d grown up with, in Alderaan’s mountains. Quaensan Prime reminded her of it, a little; there had yet to be a storm, but the mountains promised one, in time. Leia pressed her hand against the door, feeling the reassuring chill of metal: something real and present, among the memories and Force-laden swirls of the air around her.

Leia forced herself to open her eyes, and to speak as clearly as she ever had for the old senate and the new one, though both had been destroyed. “Do you know why you’re still alive?”

The door transmitted her words as if there wasn’t anything in the way. She could see his shoulders tense, the same motion that ran through Han’s body when they fought. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and she didn’t move to wipe them away. Let them come.

He shrugged, finally, and stood in a fluid motion, nothing like the gangly teenager she remembered. He’d finally grown into his body, Leia thought, forcing herself to remain upright; it was a shame that this is what he’d chosen to do with it. His voice was deep and sweet in the Force, and he said, “I still have tasks to accomplish.”

“I could have killed you thrice over.” Leia heard her own voice at a distance. Ben’s eyes were the same, if harder, if consumed by the same shadows that swirled around the rest of him in the Force. “I did not.”

“And now we are here.” He shrugged again, and crossed his arms around his chest. He did not quite curl around them.

“Yes.” Leia pressed her hand against the door, hard enough that she could see her skin whiten at the stress. “I do not know who you are now.”

“My name is Kylo Ren,” he said, but he said it too quickly, too automatically.

Leia closed her other hand into a fist, feeling her rings and fingernails bite into her skin. The pinprick pains kept her voice almost steady. “Your name was Ben Organa, once.”

He turned away from her, so that she could see his long hair, carefully tied back in a tight braid, and the scar across his face. “That is not my name.”

The braid caught at her; it was intricately done, keeping every strand of his hair contained, and began as multiple smaller braids before fading into the one that ran down his neck. She had taught Ben those patterns, once. Before she could think too deeply upon that, she said, “You have one week to choose which name is truly yours. I miss Ben, and would gladly welcome my son back home.”

His shoulders hitched.

“Kylo Ren—” Leia dropped all pretenses for a moment, and sent the rage and pain that had been growing in her since Starkiller straight at him. The way he staggered, and the vulnerability shot across his face in the first heartbeat, was satisfying, viscerally; it caught at her lungs and whispered _You could destroy him now_ in the depths of her mind. Leia fought that reaction, tucked the rage back in its careful box, and said, “I would kill him without a second thought.”

She pulled her hand back from the door and stepped away. He looked at her, and for a breath she thought that it was Ben looking back at her, eyes wide with fear as he told her about nightmares. Then he blinked, and Kylo Ren, whose face she saw in her own nightmares, watched her instead. He smiled, and there was nothing of the joy she’d once associated with his face, but just the cold certainty she remembered seeing on Grand Moff Tarkin’s face. He said, “Thank you for telling me, General.”

If there was any hesitation before he spoke her rank, Leia couldn’t justify it as anything other than her own wishful thinking. Leia nodded once, curtly, and walked away.

 

**Ignorance, yet knowledge.**

Finn took a deep breath and settled more comfortably into his chair. It was harder, when he was hooked up to medical equipment, but he’d gotten used to that in the time since Starkiller. They didn’t have anything running into him this time, either; Dr. Kalonia just wanted to make sure that if this actually _worked_ , they’d have evidence. “Okay,” he said, looking over at Luke Skywalker. “And then I just... let go, but focus on wholeness?”

Luke Skywalker nodded. “That’s the best explanation anyone’s ever given me, at least.”

“Great,” Finn muttered, trying to keep the doubt out of his voice.

“Close your eyes.” Luke Skywalker’s voice sounded like water lapping against the shore, but deeper and more powerful than anything he’d seen in D’Qar’s lakes. “Breathe with my count.”

Automatically, Finn responded, closing his eyes relaxing into his breath. The bits of stickiness where Dr. Kalonia’s sensors were attached faded from his awareness, as did the chair, leaving just the eternal background _ache_ of his back and shoulder.

Finn reached _into_ the ache, remembering the way it felt when he and Rey curled up together under the stars, the warmth that suffused everything no matter what the temperature outside was, and the way it felt to watch Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker use the Force like another hand; the stars shone less brightly than their eyes in those moments. That was what he was looking for, that was the warmth and power he was giving to... to _himself_.

He lost track of time, resting in the warmth of quieting pain that he had never quite realised was there. When he opened his eyes, Dr. Kalonia and Luke Skywalker were standing in front of him, arguing in hissed whispers.

Finn sat up a little. There weren’t any sensors attached to him now. “Did it work?” he asked.

They both stopped, and Dr. Kalonia turned around, her sharp-boned face equal measures pleased and exasperated. Finn knew both expressions very well; he’d been the source of both, many times. “It did. It _also_ exhausts you, from how you fell right asleep. You’re going to need to eat more, if you’re going to keep going with this experiment.”

Luke Skywalker laughed. “Thank you for ensuring our mysticism is properly measured, Doctor.”

Finn rubbed his shoulder, the one that usually gave him so much trouble. It didn’t hurt at all, now, though the scar tissue remained. “What time is it?”

“Nearly dinnertime,” Luke Skywalker said. He stood and said, to Dr. Kalonia, “I’ll take him to the mess hall and make sure he eats, Doctor.”

“You’d better,” Dr. Kalonia muttered.

Finn grinned, and stretched. Rey and Poe were going to be so pleased when they heard what he’d spent the afternoon doing.

 

**Passion, yet serenity.**

Rey leaned against the wall next to Kylo Ren’s door. She didn’t need to look inside to know he was there, and that he was ignoring her as best he could. Neither of them liked acknowledging that they’d ended up here every day since he’d arrived, stalemating across a wall of metal bare inches thick. Either of them could break it, if they tried — Rey more easily than Kylo Ren, since she had access to weapons, but that didn’t matter when Kylo Ren had the Force — but neither of them had tried.

The silence was oppressive, hanging over the corridor like the desert before a storm. Something was coming, and it would come soon, but it wasn’t there yet and all you could do was wait. Rey hated waiting like that; she’d always gone out and done what she could in the liminal time where the sky held its breath. Sometimes it meant she got caught in the sands. More often, it gave her something to _do_.

She addressed the opposite wall. “You don’t care that you’re going to die in three days?”

“What makes you so sure I will die?” Kylo Ren’s voice still haunted her sleep. She wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that she now had more knowledge of his voice; she didn’t always replay Starkiller, now, but the insidious whisper of his river-smooth voice coaxing her towards his shadows in the stars wasn’t _better_  it was just _different_.

Rey growled. He wouldn’t hear it — the pickups weren’t quite that sensitive — but it would resonate in the Force and he’d _feel_ it. “You’re a fucking asshole who hasn’t even _pretended_ to be guilty, or ashamed, or even sound like you _care_.” Her voice echoed through the hall. The guards outside could probably hear, but she didn’t care; they’d heard it all before, in the gossip that traipsed through Quansan Base.

Kylo Ren laughed. “I _care_.”

“About what?”

“I dedicated myself to the power the Supreme Leader showed me.” His words were quiet. Rey could feel him through the wall behind her, a man-shaped undertow, a ragged whirlwind of the Force. “I care about that moment of ascension. I care about the scar on my face, and what it symbolises.”

The memory of that moment — of how _easy_ it had been to slice through Kylo Ren’s face, of how viscerally disappointed she’d been to see his eyes still blinking, his throat still heaving in pain as he fell to his knees — flooded Rey. She tamped it down, pressing herself back into the wall. Leia had asked her not to injure him. Leia had claimed him for her own. Leia would not appreciate it if she rose up in a roar and slammed him back with the Force. So instead, she let her breath out in a hiss, and said, “I beat you.”

Kylo Ren didn’t say anything at first. Rey couldn’t feel any changes to his presence in the Force; he was still shadows, snow crunching underfoot, a scream echoing through the stars. His emotions didn’t penetrate the shell of grouchiness that wrapped around him at all times. So she waited, digging her fingers into her arms to keep herself still. She wasn’t going to look at his face. She didn’t need to see it again.

“Yes,” he finally said, packing as much loathing into the half-hissed, halting, words as he could. “You did.”

“I could do it again.” Calm. Certain. Even if she didn’t always feel that way, it was important to project that, to make it seem true.

The silence was even longer this time, radiating through the sound of the air vents and the distant footsteps of the guards changing. Rey kept herself still. She’d learnt that lesson well during long desert days, looking for parts and hiding from those who would steal them from her. She could outwait Kylo Ren. Maybe it would take reciting all the names of the stars she’d known on Jakku, and maybe it’d take letting herself sit in the memory of what it felt like to fly, and all the startup sequences she knew, and maybe it would just take quieting into meditation, which Luke and Leia both thought she should practice more; whatever the path, she would outwait him through simple stubbornness if nothing else.

“I know,” Kylo Ren said, and the words sound like he’d dragged them out of his stomach with pliers.

Rey smiled. “Good.”

This time, when quiet descended, Rey walked away without looking back.

 

**Chaos, yet harmony.**

They were both so _young_. Luke sighed to himself, and adjusted his robes around him to cushion the stepladder he sat upon better. They were so young, but they were older than he’d been when he met Leia. They would do great things, he was sure; the Force blazed around both of them, and if Rey’s light was brighter right now that was simply because she knew herself as a _person_ more deeply than Finn. He would learn, too, with Rey and Poe and the rest of the Resistance beside him, welcoming him.

Lightsabers hummed and clashed against each other. Luke still hadn’t gotten used to it again, after the years since his Academy’s destruction. But if now was the time to rebuild, then so be it. He had two wonderful students to start with, and more would come in time. For now, he was thankful it was only two, and ones who, despite their differences, already knew how to work with each other and genuinely _liked_ one another. Luke smiled as Rey laughed, Finn’s blade — Luke’s, really, but loaned to Finn until they had time to build a new one just for his hands — deflecting hers away and into the ground, scoring the hangar’s floor.

Rey attacked again, almost dancing around Finn as she feinted. He sat easily in his chair, calm and smiling as Rey’s lightsaber flicked towards his face, only moving into a block when she finally committed. Luke could see the Force swelling around them both, eddies and flows that predicated their movements and which he thought Finn, at least, was beginning to feel. He’d hoped for that; Finn needed to learn confidence, and to feel secure in his ability to block or dodge or redirect what came at him. Rey, on the other hand, needed to learn control.

Already, Rey’s attacks were coming harder, and even though Finn’s shoulder was mechanically fine now — his work with healing meditation was splendid; Luke wished he had that much sensitivity and control — his muscles still got fatigued more easily than Rey’s. Each hit moved a little closer to Finn’s chair and body, until Luke called, “Enough,” across the hangar, voice quiet but resonant.

Rey stepped back, her lightsaber staying in a middle guard. Finn turned Luke’s off, and tossed it in his direction. Luke laughed, and caught it with the Force, letting it settle back into its clip at his side without moving his hands. “Well done, both of you.”

Rey’s lightsaber clicked off. In the silence, Luke heard pilots and mechanics and other passers-by who had become bystanders remembering that they had business of their own to attend to. Rey grinned at Luke. “I still want to duel you.”

“Patience.” Luke stood, and walked over to them. He didn’t need to move as slowly as he did, but he preferred letting people underestimate him, especially now that his hair was mostly gray. “You’re progressing quickly,” Luke said to Finn. The young man looked up at him, quiet and solemn as always; Luke had seen him smiling, laughing, joking even, when with Poe and Rey, but in training, or with any of the higher-ups in the Resistance, he was a model soldier, still. Someday he’d grow out of that, Luke hoped; he shone too brightly to be constrained for long. “Do you feel the way the Force warns of Rey’s intended strikes?”

“Is that what it is?” Finn asked. He looked up at Rey, eyebrows twitching, more relaxed just from that one change. “I thought you were just going easy on me.”

Rey scoffed. “I would never.”

Luke said, before they could dissolve into squabbling, “Finn, see if you can notice premonitions in other settings. Rey, remember—”

“It’s like meditation, but moving,” she said, right along with him. She scowled. “I know the words, but what does it _mean_?”

“Everything is possible, but nothing is certain.” Luke sighed and looked up at the hangar ceiling. This would be easier in the jungles of Yavin IV, or even D’Qar. “Try to keep yourself centered, so that it’s harder for Finn to tell what you’re going to do next.”

Rey snapped her lightsaber back into its clip. “That sounds like something I can do.” She grinned at Finn, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Come on, let’s see if the cooks still like us enough to give us a snack.”

“They like _me_ , not _you_ ,” Finn said, but he turned and followed beside her with just a parting nod at Luke.

Luke watched them go. They both needed more time to be young.

He hoped they would get it.

 

**Death, yet the Force.**

Kylo Ren sat, meditating, as the seventh day dawned. He could feel the world waking above him as sunlight touched the mountains; birds began singing, insects woke or quieted, and the Resistance’s lookouts changed. The general had not told him when he would be asked to answer to her, simply that it would be on this day. He suspected it would be sooner; he’d half-expected her to appear just past midnight local time, when the day clicked over according to New Republic — and First Order, and Resistance — standards.

She hadn’t. He’d woken, briefly, letting his internal time-sense ensure that he wouldn’t be surprised. When nothing had come but echoes and the half-familiar sounds of late-night bases, Kylo Ren had returned to sleep mildly disappointed and afraid to name a reason why.

His morning meal came, same as it had every other time: unremarkable rations which needed no utensils to be eaten, and which could be served in its package. Kylo Ren picked at this one; sausages and half-hearted bread studded with dried fruit. It was good, for rations. Uninspired, but filling, as it was supposed to be. Even eating as slowly as he did, Kylo Ren had finished it and tossed the thin plastic container in the trash receptacle before the general and her entourage made their appearance.

Leia Organa was front and center, and he felt her coming as soon as she began walking his way. She was a flood, an avalanche, the unstoppable force of nature that could not be swayed. Beside her, Luke Skywalker was an echo of sorrow and resolve that Kylo Ren didn’t want to underestimate again. He knew Rey’s sense in the Force now, too, from her visitations; she was a flame, bright and burning like the pyre she wanted to see him on, predictable in the knowledge that she would burn those who got to close, unless they knew how to tame her.

Sometimes he wished that they’d met in other circumstances, so that he could have had that chance, before Finn (the moon, distant stars, the moment of pure _wonder_ of arriving somewhere new, faith so deep and broad that it took his breath away) had loved her, and she had loved him back. Before the Force had bound them together so tightly that nothing could break them apart.

Kylo Ren sighed, and arranged himself on his chair, facing the door. He wore his hair in two thick braids running alongside his head, conjoined into a single fishtail at the back of his skull. A warrior’s braids. Leia Organa would see that message, though she would not understand what choice it meant he was making. The others would simply see his face left bare, the scar that still ached at night glaring at them in accusation and reminder of what he was capable of doing.

The door opened, this time; they did not stay outside, where it was safe — or at least, where the illusion of safety lay. Leia Organa marched in, the general she had always been. They were almost of a height, when he was sitting. Kylo Ren resisted the urge to stand; it would gain him nothing. He kept his hands resting on his thighs, quiet, the perfect prisoner waiting for the judges arrayed before him (Luke at Leia’s right hand, and Rey at her left, with Finn completing the diamond behind them, terrified but still present, his eyes wide open and his heart beating in brave concert with theirs) to deliver their verdict.

“It’s time.” Leia’s voice rang like a bell, quiet as it was. “What is your name?”

“I am Kylo Ren,” he said. His voice was louder than hers. It filled less space. “I have done what the Supreme Leader asked of me.” He paused, and met Leia’s eyes. His muscles tensed. “I have no regrets.”

(It is a lie. It has always been a lie. He regrets many things, but he is not going to speak those regrets aloud. He is not going to tell them to her through the unspoken wind, the cascades of tears that have gone unshed across the years because none of them quite heard what anyone else was saying.)

Leia’s lips compressed, whitened. Her eyes glittered, though he couldn’t tell whether it’s from tears or anger. “You are sure?”

At her side, Rey’s hand dropped to her lightsaber which should have been his. At a gesture from Luke Skywalker, it changed to just a fist. Her anger permeated the room, a hot heart, a krayt dragon from Luke’s childhood stories. Kylo Ren tore his eyes away from her, back to Leia, and said, “I’m sure.”

(He must be sure, because there is no other truth he can sustain.)

Leia opened her arms, her hand. The Force pulsed, contractions running across the room, until it squeezed him, clamped him down against the chair. He hissed. There was no point in trying to move. She had always been the stronger of them, no matter how much he had learned from her, no matter how much time he’d put into trying to be better, more powerful; just because she chose not to exercise her power did not mean it wasn’t there.

“My lightsaber,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t think she’d said it at all.

Kylo Ren’s eyes flickered to Luke Skywalker, but Finn was the one who moved. He came forward, sitting in a hoverchair, and raised a lightsaber up to Leia. She took it, her hand fitting into the delicate Alderaanian handiwork like it was another piece of jewelry she couldn’t stand to wear.

“This is your choice?” Leia asked again. Her hands were steady, but the Force roiled around her, the ocean in a storm, an asteroid belt of conflicted feelings.

Kylo Ren breathed deep, and smiled at her. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

Leia stepped forward, and placed her hand on his cheek. It was warm, and Kylo Ren closed his eyes. It felt too much like Han’s, like the way that they had stood over Starkiller.

A lightsaber hilt pressed to his chest and then—

There was nothing, and there was the Force.

**Author's Note:**

> This story's sections were titled by the lines of the Jedi Code.
> 
> Emotion, yet peace.  
> Ignorance, yet knowledge.  
> Passion, yet serenity.  
> Chaos, yet harmony.  
> Death, yet the Force.  
> \- Jedi Code, original


End file.
